Northeast progressive rock/dance music band Dopapod rolled into Kingston, NY, on the tail end of their spring tour along with funk/jazz duo Soule Monde. BSP Kingston opened up their larger back theater for the first time of the year for the show. A new modern stage was erected in front of the relic of the original stage that was built in the 1920’s and the ornamentation of the old stage lit up with colorful lights made an eerie backdrop in the large room.
Soule Monde which is Ray Paczkowski (keyboards) and Russ Lawton (drums) from Trey Anastasio’s touring band opened the show with a set loaded with driving funk beats and pulsating Hammond B-3 organ. Crisp staccato cow bell was the driving force of “Take My Hand”. Dopapod bassist, Chuck Jones, joined the duo mid-set to contribute some additional lower end to a tune.
The house music ended and piped-in moody keyboards drifted over the PA as steams of lights meandered over the stage as if searching for the musicians that had not yet entered the performance space. The band emerged and the lights steadied and Dopapod ripped right into “Present Ghosts” that featured soaring keyboards from Eli Winderman on the Moog Prodigy. The organ-heavy “Cure” left plenty of room for guitarist Rob Compa to shred some scorching solos. The members of Soule Monde joined the band for a nearly twenty minute funk romp, “Bats in the Cave”. Paczkowski and Winderman doubled up on the keyboards and Lawton took over the drum kit with Dopapod drummer Scotty Zwang adding flourishes from the side of the drum set. The band ended the first set with “Train Filled with Dynamite” that contained teases of “Hava Nagila”.
The crowd thinned a bit during the set break but that did not diminish Dopapod’s enthusiasm as the band rekindled the energy created in the first set with “New James” that segued into “November” and both songs brought back the “Hava Nagila” theme with more teases. “Indian Grits” was an intense instrumental exploration into jazz with swirling organ and intricate guitar. The band continued to find creative ways to insert snippets of “Hava Nagila” during “Dracula’s Monk” which had more explosive bursts of Moog synthesizer. Dopapod tore through two more blistering songs, “We are not Alone” and “Picture In Picture” that switched to a reggae beat to end the ninety-minute plus second set. The band returned to an enthusiastic audience for a cover of Derek and the Dominoes’ “Keep on Growing” as an encore.
Dopapod combined energetic vocals, intense instrumentals, and artistic lighting by sound and light engineer Luke Stratton to give the audience a provoking concert experience. Bringing along funk duo Soule Monde to open the show added to an already rich live music experience.
